I live in Ohio with my husband, Matt, and our adorable sons, Zachariah & Jonah. This...is my life.

Monday, November 19, 2007

Baby Naming

I love thinking/dreaming about baby names. That's just one more reason I love Swistle. Here she is having another baby name discussion. And I am glued to the comments. I love this. Just this weekend my cousin was asking me how I chose my son's name and what some other possibilities were. I thought maybe you'd be interested in hearing it. And I think I'm going to tell you some of the other names on my list. (I can't believe I'm doing that, because I'm usually pretty secretive about revealing baby names.) I may or may not use any of those names for future babies. Mostly I think I'll want a whole new list of names for next time. In fact I've already started a girls list, because I didn't get very far with girls' names last time.

I was very funny about sharing baby names. I think I will be for all future children too. I did NOT want to decide on the baby's name until I saw him, but I wanted to have a few names that we both loved on hand. I also was really hesitant to tell people about the names that I really loved. I didn't want people to judge the names and then "ruin" them for me. Matt didn't care about all that. I think he talked to more people about our possible names than I thought. But that was even more reason for me not to name the baby early. I asked Matt for names he liked and told him names I liked. Then we compiled a list, but I had the final say.

For me when I looked for baby names I wanted something people (maybe) knew, but something less common. I wasn't sure I wanted a name in the top 50/100 for the past few years, but I wasn't dead set against that. I seemed more likely to want a unique name for a girl (but nothing too crazy) and a classic name for a boy. Although that wasn't exactly the way I went.

OK, I had no ideas about boy names. At first we threw around Mark, David, John, Matthew, and sometimes Charles as first and/or middle names. These are all family names. My dad is Mark David (and I'd love to used some kind of his name for a future baby), Matt's dad is Charles Edward (Matt's name is Matthew Charles and his brother's name is Benjamin Edward, so they both got a part of their dad's name), and John was my grandfather's name (He passed away only 2 years before I got pregnant and I think this could still be a possibility for at least a middle name in the future.).

When we were looking at girl names (before finding out it was a boy at the 20 week ultrasound) we had one we both really liked. Since we didn't look much more that became our back up name, in case it was really a girl. It was Laila Nicole. Laila (spelled that way), Matt came across it in a baby name book and fell in love with it. He said to me "Laila, how do you feel about that?". I liked it. Then Nicole came in for a middle name, because a childhood friend of mine (named Nicole) died in a car accident when we were seniors in high school. For whatever reason I was thinking of her when I was pregnant, and I felt strongly about using her name for a girl. I don't know if I still would...maybe. We had a few other girl names that we liked, but we didn't get far so I didn't get a chance to keep changing my mind. There is one girl name that I mentioned before that I would consider again. If I had to name a baby girl right now, I know what her name would be. I don't think I want to share it though. It's different. I've never heard it before, but I saw it in a baby name book and loved it. It's not traditional, but it's more trendy sounding. But I don't think people will have too many problems saying it...just maybe spelling it.

About Me

I am a mother. I have been married to Matt since 2000, and we have two beautiful sons - Zachariah (born March 2006) & Jonah (born March 2013). I am a licensed teacher, but I love being a stay at home mom.